(Gary adds:)But the latest figures reveal that NOT everyone but you would be circumcised. I read somewhere recently that many parents were rejecting circumcision in the US, and the trend is rising. These are recent government figures for the number of boys left intact.

Intact Incidence Rate

1994

1995

1996

1997

Northeast Region

30.4%

31.7%

33.3%

31.7%

Midwest Region

19.9%

20.2%

19.0%

18.4%

Southern Region

35.3%

33.9%

36.4%

35.5%

Western Region

65.8%

57.4%

63.6%

62.0%

All Regions

37.3%

35.9%

39.8%

37.2%

Every day in the United States, over 3,300 infant boys are circumcised “electively” (obviously not at their own election) : 1 every 26 seconds, 1.25 million yearly, at an annual cost to parents and health insurers exceeding $200 million. This non-indicated surgery uses up untold personnel hours.

Over 80% of the world’s male population is genitally intact, with 20% being subjected to some form of childhood genital mutilation.

The U.S. is the only country in the world to circumcise the majority of its newborn males for non-religious reasons.

Over 90% of circumcisions performed in the U.S. are for non-religious reasons.

100% of infant circumcisions are done without the consent of the individual concerned.

Origins

British and American physicians thought it logical to perform genital surgery on both sexes to prevent or cure masturbation. This rationale originated in Victorian England, and gradually spread, along with the practice of circumcision, to the rest of the English-speaking world.

The current medical rationales/rationalizations for infant circumcision developed after the operation was in wide practice. They include: to make sons resemble their circumcised fathers; to conform anatomically with peers (Note: Circumcised Canadian boys now find themselves in a minority of 20-25%); to improve hygiene; to prevent tight/non-retractile foreskin [medicine has since come to understand this as a normal state in the foreskin of a child]; as prophylaxis against urinary tract infection (UTI), sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and cancer of the penis or cervix. (See below for a closer look at these various rationales.) [Circumcision as a prevention of these uncommon and otherwise preventable/treatable conditions is “overkill”: There is virtually no condition that infant circumcision has ever been purported to potentially prevent or cure that cannot be prevented or resolved by other means, respectful of the body and genital integrity. World-wide, foreskin problems are treated medically, not surgically.]

With a clearer understanding of normal male genital anatomy, and the creation of the British National Health Service in 1948, infant circumcision in Britain quickly declined and now stands at less than one-half of one percent.

The penile foreskin defined

The foreskin (or prepuce) is a natural, retractile, protective covering for the glans (head) of the penis, and is the most erotogenic area of the penis in terms of the quantity, concentration, and quality of specialized nerve receptors and stretch receptors that it is endowed with, especially on its inner mucosal lining (which gets redeployed behind the glans during erection).

The average adult foreskin consists of 1½ inches of outer skin, 1½ inches of inner mucosal lining – totaling a length of 3 inches – and is 5 inches in circumference when erect. This amounts to a surface area of 15 square inches, or a surface area equivalent to that of a 3" by 5" inch index card!

The foreskin contains over 240 feet of nerves and over 1,000 nerve endings, as well as being a highly vascularized structure.

The foreskin contains “junctional mucosa that appear to be an important component of the overall sensory mechanism of the human penis” (J. R. Taylor et al. The prepuce: specialized mucosa of the penis and its loss to circumcision. British Journal of Urology (1996) 77, pp. 291-295.)

The foreskin is not vestigial or redundant tissue, in that no other part of the male body does what the foreskin does, or feels what the foreskin feels.

The foreskin serves to protect the glans, thereby maintaining the glans-surface’s naturally-intended thinness, texture, and sensitivity.

The foreskin has rich sensations in and of itself. The foreskin also plays a mechanical-lubrication role. It serves as a gliding sheath during masturbation or sexual activity, rendering the quality of the friction between the man and his partner more gentle, less abrasive. This is useful to the woman, especially with prolonged intercourse and especially with age, when she provides less liquid lubrication. With circumcision, this natural gliding mechanism is lost.

The fact that the foreskin in infancy is usually non-retractile serves to protect the baby’s glans penis from urine and feces during the period that he is incontinent.

Women have a foreskin as well, which covers and protects their clitoris. It is alternatively referred to as the clitoral foreskin, clitoral prepuce, or clitoral hood.

Penile development

Development of the foreskin is incomplete in the newborn male child, and separation from the glans, making it retractable, does not usually occur until some time between 9 months and 3 years.

Tight non-rectractile foreskin (normal developmental non-retractability, or physiological phimosis) resolves by age 6 in 92% of boys, 94% by their teens. 1% of late adolescents will still have a non-retractile foreskin. (Gentle, systematic stretching is indicated to resolve this. Moreover, steroid creams are successful in resolving this in the vast majority of cases when this is a problem.)

Infant circumcision interrupts natural penile development.

Hygiene easy

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) states: “The uncircumcised penis is easy to keep clean. No special care is required. No attempt should be made to forecefully retract the foreskin [of a child whose foreskin is as yet unretractable].”

Simple overall hygiene can offer all the potential benefits of circumcision, without the sacrifice of the health benefits of the foreskin and of physical and functional integrity.

Intact genital hygiene for a male is easier and less time-consuming than either oral, feminine, or anal hygiene. (If a man takes more than 10 seconds to wash his foreskin, he is likely doing so with a smile on his face.)

The basis of the (non-religious) circumcision decision

Infant circumcision is performed at the request of parents ostensibly for health reasons, but research reveals, and doctors acknowledge, parents’ social and aesthetic reasons. (Brown, Mark S., M.D. Circumcision Decision: Prominence of Social Concerns. Pediatrics, vol. 80, no. 2, August 1987, pp. 215-219.)

Immediate risks and possible surgical complications

No accurate statistical records are kept of infant circumcision complications.

According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the exact incidence of post-operative complications is unknown.

Infant circumcision excises normal, healthy, healthful, functioning erogenous tissue that belongs to someone else (i.e., to someone other than the one making the circumcision decision, and other than the one who will be affected by the decision), and leaves a scar.

Pain, trauma, and memory

According to a comprehensive recent study, infant responses to pain are “similar to but greater than those observed in adult subjects.”

Infant circumcision causes severe, persistent pain.

Some infants do not cry because they go into shock from the overwhelming pain of the surgery.

Infants rarely receive anaesthesia or post-operative pain management.

No anesthetic has been found to be safe and totally effective in preventing circumcision pain in infants. [A man circumcised in adulthood will be given the benefit of general anaesthetic, post-operative pain management, choice and informed consent over the fate of his own genital integrity.]

The persistence of specific behavioural changes after circumcision in neonates implies the presence of memory (Study, Toronto Hospital for Sick Children).

Maternal-infant interaction, -bonding and breastfeeding affected

Breastfeeding has a protective effect against urinary tract infection (UTI) and other infant infections.

A stressful, painful event such as circumcision appears to affect feeding patterns. Infants feed less frequently and are less available for interaction after circumcision. Observed deterioration of breastfeeding (postoperatively) may potentially contribute to breast-feeding failure.

An estimated minimum of 1.3 to 6.6 million males born in the U.S. between 1940 and 1990 carry some degree of physical complication from infant circumcision. Unknown numbers carry some form of sexual or psychological complication.

Circumcision constitutes a subtraction, removing one- to two-thirds of the penile skin system.

Adverse outcomes of a psychological nature that have been reported and documented include: sexual dysfunction of various forms and degrees, including impotence; awareness of a loss of normal protective, sensory, and mechanical functioning; anger, resentment; feelings of parental petrayal; feeling (awareness) of being mutilated; feelings (awareness) of one’s right to a normal intact body having been violated and removed; feelings (awareness) of being unwhole and unnatural; addictions or dependencies; sense of anatomical and sexual inferiority to genitally intact (non-circumcised) men; foreskin (or intact penis) envy.
The quality and quantity of long-term negative impacts on men from infant circumcision have never been investigated.

Involvement of Obstetricians/Gynecologists

Ob/Gyn’s, specialists in female genitalia and practicing out of their field, perform most newborn male circumcisions.

In the 1980s, retrospective studies by Wiswell et al. suggested that 98-99% of intact (non-circumcised) male infants will not develop UTI (compared with his finding of 99.9% in circumcised male infants). In 1989, the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) cautioned that Wiswell’s studies comparing the two groups may be methodologically flawed, and that the percentage of intact male infants who will not develop UTI may be even higher. Research in the 90s has since confirmed that Wiswell’s studies are flawed, as the AAP cautioned, and that the incidence of UTIs in intact male infants is significantly lower than the 1-2% he reported.

Girls have higher rates of UTI in childhood than either intact or circumcised boys. If surgical excision of the infant clitoral foreskin (or clitoral hood) were thought to provide the same (or even greater) measure of theoretical potential benefit against UTI that male circumcision has been purported by a few to provide, would we be resorting to a minimal female circumcision such as this (which would remove far less tissue than male circumcision does) as a valid and justifiable UTI prevention strategy?

European doctors cite American birthing practices, not the foreskin, as the cause of the U.S.’s allegedly higher rate of UTI in intact boys.

Breastfeeding has been demonstrated to protect against infant UTI and other infections. Infant circumcision has been demonstrated to potentially contribute to breastfeeding failure.

UTI in males often results from a congenital abnormality which predisposes the child to bacterial infection. Such congenital abnormalities have nothing to do with the foreskin.
Antimicrobial management of UTI in infants is routine, and the outcome generally good.

Penile Cancer

Among intact (i.e., non-circumcised) males, 99.999% will not develop penile cancer [The rate of penile cancer is 1 in 100,000. It is one of the rarest cancers, rarer even than male breast cancer.]

It has been suggested that performing 100,000 infant circumcisions – thus removing in 100% of those circumcisions 100% of the foreskin’s irreplaceable health benefits – in order to possibly prevent an otherwise preventable cancer in one elderly man is absurd.

Annually, there are more infant deaths from infant circumcisions than deaths from cancer of the penis.

It has been erroneously claimed that penile cancer virtually never occurs in men who have been circumcised in infancy.

In a recent study on penile cancer, a full 20% of the study-group had been circumcised at birth.